Travelling (by airplane)

Normally, this post should be about the Feria de Abril that takes place every year in Seville. Being there last week (and since I had an amazing time) I was planning to devote a few lines and share some photographic evidences, but instead I will talk about the way back.

I've been in Seville a few times in the past and usually I fly with a low budget airline from somewhere nearby, but this time due to the fair all the tickets were expensive. After much checking and searching on the internet I ended up flying from Gatwick with Click Air (which is a low cost airline, subsidiary of Iberia).

Entering Seville airport it was fairly easy to notice that it has been somewhat modernised. Other than the facelift though, everything else was the same. The staff just refuses to speak in English no matter how puzzled a face may I pull and the officers in the passport control are always shocked on the sight of my Greek passport. In the beginning I used to get frustrated, but nowadays it’s more like a tradition for me.

Arriving on Gatwick airport on Sunday (13/4) I was in for a surprise. My luggage did not actually make it London. Disappointed as I was I headed to the baggage office the report the missing article. A very helpful man asked for my passport and baggage stubs and minutes later gave me my completed Property Irregularity Report and an A4 piece of paper with some contact and general details for these situations. He was so calm that when I left the airport I was more concerned with my long trip to Leeds than with the missing luggage.

Early the following day I noticed that some details on the PIR that the helpful man on Gatwick completed for me where not accurate. Namely, the details that were inaccurate were my Name and the Tag Number. You see he entered an non existing number in the Tag Number field and when copying my name from my passport to the form he copied the Greek spelling of the name substituting the letters that do not exist in the English alphabet with other that look similar, for example Σ->Z. Successsssss!

It was obvious that I had to contact the company and let them know about the amendments they should since it seemed to me rather impossible for them to manage to track down my suitcase having the wrong name and tag number. Unfortunately, the piece of paper I got at the airport (the one with the contact details) it only had one telephone number on it that I could only call from 12:00 to 18:00, so I though maybe the Click Air website would have some other means of contacting them.

On their website I used the online contact service since the phone numbers provided could only be dialled from a landline (we do have a phone in the office but calling any number but a local one is barred. That was around 8:40 in the morning.

Three and a half hours later, since not having received confirmation of my details being updated I’ve decided to call the working-only-from-12:00to18:00 number I was given at the airport. As expected the number was quite busy but after about ten minutes I’ve managed to get a line. After a few ringing tones though, disappointment again in the form of the following message “Please, leave your message after the tone”. I left a message explaining everything along with my number so they could provide confirmation that everything is ok.

Around 4 o’clock I hadn’t receive any confirmation that Click Air was aware of the changes that have to be made in the PIR report, so I headed home to call the number I had found on their website in the morning. A helpful guy explained to me that there is not much he can do since:-

• my tag number starts with IB, thus it is an Iberia one
• Click Air does not have to capability to deal with missing or lost baggage. Everything is deal by the parent company.

Thus he suggested that I speak to Iberia and he gave me their number.

At around 16:30 I had finished talking to yet another very helpful person on the phone that corrected my details and informed me that everything is ok, that the system has immediately commenced a search for my suitcase and that I can use the PIR File Reference number that I have to track the delivery of my suitcase after it has been found.

A couple of hours later my partner returned home from work and I briefed her up on the progress. Straight away she realised that I had forgotten to ask about possible compensation and offered to call to check that for me. During the phone call though she realised that the details that I assumed that had been updated hadn’t. So she passed on to them the correct details once again. When I found out I got fairly angry and I called the helpline again. To my luck I got the same person that had answered my first phone call and as soon as I gave him the reference number he replied that he cannot access that file and that he remembers that we had spoken earlier on as well so why I’m I calling him. After explaining what had happened a few minutes ago when my partner was speaking to one of his colleagues he told me that the access of the file should not be possible since he sent the details to the airport and he is now waiting for a new PIR form to be issued so as the system can start searching for my missing item. After that he concluded that I shouldn’t worry any more since now my problem lies on the hands of Iberia (like it wasn’t Iberia that lost it in the first place)… The unintentional irony of his sayings made me laugh and not being quite sure if he was lying at me now or earlier on I just hung up the phone.

Right now I just pray that they’ll manage to find it at the end (preferably intact). This is already a rather long post, so I’m going to skip the details of the compensation for the time being. If you need any information try here.